[adrian]

It has been discussed before and opinions vary as to why an 1804 would have a VR stamp when no new cutlasses had been made for many years. Some think that the cypher is fake, but it looks OK to me - any thoughts?

Thank you for posting the photos of this intriguing WR modified to VR royal cypher. I can only draw a parallel with muskets of the same period. The war store of these (complete muskets) was so vast, by 1816, that it was not worryingly low until 1838, and measures were then undertaken to address that, while awaiting the new percussion arm to be finalised. The Store of parts was also vast, and it was that 'store' which provided barrels & locks for the new arms. The barrels had their GR era proof & view stamps, they were not erased & re-stamped, merely viewed & approved as regards their 'percussioning'. The locks did not anyway have any engraving & bore only an acceptance stamp - so they acquired the current royal cypher as part of the work of setting-up an arm. The number of muskets made using up the 'old' stock of barrels & locks comprised about eight patterns and numbered well over a quarter of a million muskets, the vast majority being Extra Service Muskets.

Quite why these blades have been stamped with a royal cypher is unknown to me, however it is clear that the cypher has been altered from WR to VR and that it looks to be authentic.



My own theory for the contradiction follows. A large number of existing 1804 cutlasses had been sent to the tower for modification, which included a new hilt, when a serious fire at the Tower in 1841 destroyed large numbers of these. In order to make up the the serious shortage these were re-issued with a VR stamp in the 1840s.

The fire at the Tower was, if one reads modern references, a major watershed in the direction of British Ordnance small arms due to it, supposedly, wiping out all percussion muskets made to date, wiping out a vast number of a new design of flintlock muskets that were going to be converted to percussion and wiping out a vast store of parts that were going to be used. This belief is largely false. I won't go into detail but would instead point any interested student of arms to a new book that will be published by the Royal Armouries next year in which chapter 7 covers that fire and the number of arms lost in detail, the book 'British Ordnance Muskets of the 1830s & 1840s'.
I have to say that it is unlikely that your quite sound theory will hold up to scrutiny as the official return for swords lost in that conflagration is 1,376 swords & 2,271 sword blades - it provides no distinction between sea service or land service, nor does it distinguish between those services for pistols, muskets, etc. How many of those 'swords' were cutlasses is therefore uncertain, but the overall number is anyway too small to have any import.

However, the Tower was only one of many Stores - which is why there was so little impact as can be seen by the aforementioned vast number of muskets made with barrels & locks from store, altered to percussion. So perhaps some cutlasses were made/altered at a different location, indeed I would have thought that Enfield, and not the Tower, would have been tasked with the changes you describe in your theory especially given the period under discussion.
Indeed there was 'Sea Service swords, alterations proposed on, by Storekeeper, Enfield. Approved by Admiralty.' and although that was in 1852 it is logical to speculate that this was not the first such instance of such work to sea service swords.